glanced down the shore toward the house. "It feels like
lunch-time." He rose.

"What did you mean by what you said?"

"When you have thought about your case a while longer, we'll talk of it
again--if you wish. But until you've thought, talking is a waste of
time."

She rose, stood staring out to sea. He was observing her, a faint
smile about his lips. He said:

"Why bother about a career? After all, kept woman is a thoroughly
respectable occupation--or can be made so by any preacher or justice of
the peace. It's followed by many of our best women--those who pride
themselves on their high characters--and on their pride."

"I could not belong to a man unless I cared for him," said she. "I
tried it once. I shall never do it again."

"That sounds fine," said he. "Let's go to lunch."

"You don't believe me?"

"Do you?"

She sank down upon the sand and burst into a wild passion of sobs and
tears. When her fight for self-control was over and she looked up to
apologize for her pitiful exhibition of weakness--and to note whether
she had made an impression upon his sympathies--she saw him just
entering the house, a quarter of a mile away. To anger succeeded a
mood of desperate forlornness. She fell upon herself with gloomy
ferocity. She could not sing. She had no brains. She was taking
money--a disgracefully large amount of money--from Stanley Baird under
false pretenses. How could she hope to sing when her voice could not
be relied upon? Was not her throat at that very moment slightly sore?
Was it not always going queer? She--sing! Absurd. Did Stanley Baird
suspect? Was he waiting for the time when she would gladly accept what
she must have from him, on his own terms? No, not on his terms, but on
the terms she herself would arrange--the only terms she could make. No,
Stanley believed in her absolutely--believed in her career. When he
discovered the truth, he would lose interest in her, would regard her
as a poor, worthless creature, would be eager to rid himself of her.
Instead of returning to the house, she went in the opposite direction,
made a circuit and buried herself in the woods beyond the Shrewsbury.
She was mad to get away from her own company; but the only company she
could fly to was more depressing than the solitude and the taunt and
sneer and lash of her own thoughts. It was late in the afternoon
before she nerved herself to go home. She hoped the others would have
gone off somewher